[This
book review appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of The Journal of Social,
Political and Economic Studies, pp. 109-115.]

Book Review

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:
Immigration, Islam, and the West

Christopher Caldwell

Doubleday, 2009

Christopher
Caldwell is a senior editor at The Weekly
Standard. With this book, he has
added his voice to the literature discussing and warning against the on-going
change occurring in the identity of Europe as its native population shrinks and
as an immigrant population, mostly Islamic, establishes within it a growing
parallel society.This journal has
reviewed three of the earlier books: Walter Laqueur’s The Last Days of Europe (in our Winter 2007 issue, pp. 519-522),
Tony Blankley’s The West’s Last Chance
(Winter 2005, pp. 524-531), and Patrick J. Buchanan’s The Death of the West (Spring 2002, pp. 126-130).[1]

Even though
they deal with the same theme, each of these books, including Caldwell’s, has
much to say that keeps it from being a mere repetition of the others.Caldwell’s contribution consists largely of his emphasis on
Islam and his dissection of shibboleths that have long ruled the thinking
within Europe, especially within Europe’s
governing class.This isn’t to say that
he doesn’t have a good deal else to tell.

His
work with The Weekly Standard makes
clear his identification with American “neo-conservatism”; and, among the
authors just mentioned, this puts him closest to Blankley.He avoids, however, the extremes of which we
were so critical in Blankley’s book.Caldwell does not join Blankley in calling for a testosterone-ladened
ruthlessness in response to jihadism.Caldwell mostly limits himself to factual explication and
conceptual analysis, leaving policy prescriptions to others.If he agrees with Blankley’s extremes, he
gives no indication of it.

It is
surprising that Caldwell writes about the demographic threat to Europe
without showing an awareness of (or giving a nod of recognition to) the other
books.He does, at least, tell about
Jean Raspail’s haunting 1973 novel The Camp
of the Saints; but neither the bibliography nor the index mentions
Blankley, Buchanan or Laqueur.The
surprise at these omissions is lessened, of course, because we know that many
authors say very little about the contributions of others.This fashion would seem to stem in part from
the incivilities imposed by publishers’ and authors’ frequent insistence upon
an overly-constricted interpretation of the “fair use” doctrine, which has long
made it legally uncomfortable to bring in other authors.

Caldwell’s book gives informative details about the history of
Islamic immigration into Europe.During the decade immediately following World
War II, a prostrate Europe desperately needed manpower, and brought in large
numbers of immigrants for what Europeans thought would be short stays.But then, when “the economic benefits [that]
immigration brought [proved] marginal and temporary,” most of Europe
(except for France until 2006) shifted to a more selective type of
immigration.It found it difficult, however, to find highly
skilled people. Despite this and “generously financed repatriation programs” in
the late 1970s, the flood of immigration continued, at which time the rationale
changed from “labor immigration… to refugee immigration” (also spoken of as
“political asylum”), to which was added the bringing in of relatives for
“family unification.”The new rationale converted
the welcoming of immigration into a moral duty, as distinct from an economic
necessity.

It
eventuated that the refugees didn’t return to their home countries after the
exigencies that had forced them to flee to Europe
dissipated.In fact, there proved to be
a vast overhang of population in the Third World that
yearned to be in Europe.Some Arab
countries, such as Saudi Arabia, spent large sums to support the immigration, aiding
Islam in Europe and financing the building of mosques.In the meantime, the European Union adopted
the principle of internal openness that permits free movement within Europe.This has had the effect of taking from
national governments the ability to limit immigration into their respective
countries.“It meant,” Caldwell says, “that the immigration policy for the whole of Western Europe was set, at any given time, by whichever member state
happened to be the most soft-hearted, lax, corrupt, or sanctimonious.”A leader in this category has been Spain, which amnestied 700,000 illegal immigrants in 2005
after a succession of five previous amnesties.The upshot is that Europe sees a net influx of about 1.7 million new faces every
year, and in 2000 there were in the neighborhood of “15 to 17 million Muslims
in Western Europe.”

The
book devotes considerable attention to Islam itself.Caldwell says the resurgence of political Islam began at about
the same time as the post-World War II influx into Europe,
and that this marked “not just the resurgence of a doctrine but the resurgence
of a people” (his emphasis).Although
Muslims are highly diverse among themselves, and come from widely varied
countries and cultures all the way from west Africa to Indonesia and the Philippines, they are converging in Europe
into a common Islamic culture.Caldwell compares them to Latin American immigrants into the United States, who are also quite diverse – migrating from Mexico or Nicaragua, Puerto
Rico or Bolivia, say – but have nevertheless formed a collective “Hispanic
(or Latino) identity.”

He
recognizes that Muslims do differ among themselves about many things (sexual
customs, for example – such things as female circumcision, honor killings,
stress on virginity, arranged marriages, and marriage between cousins), but just
the same he is able to think unfavorably of the “diversity” of Muslims as “a
treasured myth among well-meaning Europeans.”He sees the areas of agreement among Muslims as more meaningful than
their differences.To his eye, “a
respect for constitutional rights” is “known to be anathema in almost every
part of the Muslim world.”He says that
“by overwhelming numbers, British Muslims oppose all intervention in the Arab
and Muslim world.”Further, “among
Muslim immigrants, dislike (to put it mildly) of Jews is endemic.”They are finding it easy to assume a “victim”
posture in Europe and to harbor “a growing sense of shared suffering.”Since 9/11, many in the West have hoped there
is a predominant mass of “moderate Muslims,” with the jihadists on the extreme;
but Caldwell is skeptical, considering it somewhat wishful
thinking.

Readers
will be well advised to read Caldwell’s discussion of Islam with the same circumspection
they would bring to any serious subject.He clearly has a point of view (which is not to suggest that it is for
that reason wrong); his neo-conservative orientation is a position decidedly favorable
to Israel and to Jews and that brooks little criticism of
them.Since the conflict between Israel and Islam occupies a central role in today’s world,
the views of any partisan, however thoughtful as Caldwell is, should simultaneously be given both respectful
consideration and less-than-automatic acceptance.Who is right, say, between Caldwell, who sees
younger immigrants as among those most ready to embrace traditional Islam, and
Walter Laqueur, who says Islam in Europe is threatened by a loss of its younger
generation as that generation absorbs with glee the enticements of street
gangs, gangsta rap, drugs, hip-hop culture, and “the lingo of the underworld”?[2]And it is perhaps because of his preoccupation
with Jew-versus-Muslim that he sees the supplanting of European culture by
Islam as a bad thing while at the same time he sees the historically rapid supplanting
of non-Hispanic whites in the United States by the Latino invasion as rather unexceptional.

There
is considerable value in what Caldwell tells us about the mindscape of the
European governing class, how it differs from the thinking of the average
European, and how much it has indulged in serial sophistries to justify the
demographic overturning of the old Europe.Caldwell speaks of “a consensus among its political and
commercial elites,” a consensus joined in for the most part by the media,
academia, the professions, and international organizations.It is the same cosmopolitan, globalist
consensus that governs the United States regardless of which political party is in power.Nowhere is the division between the
population at large and the elite more apparent than with regard to immigration
(and, what is the same thing, the problematic continued existence of a
distinctive European civilization).Caldwell tells us that “there was long a consensus among
political leaders that immigration strengthens the economy… It is still the
argument most commonly encountered in newspapers, magazines, and popular
books.”By contrast, “decade in, decade
out, the sentiment of Western European publics, as measured by opinion polls,
has been resolutely opposed to mass immigration.”The influx of non-European immigrants “is
unpopular.In no country in Europe
does the bulk of the population aspire to live in a bazaar of world cultures.”

As is
also true in the United States, what is appropriately called “the silent majority”
has been drawn in to acquiescing by default.Speaking generally (since the polls tell of widespread opposition to the
immigration), Caldwell says “the European masses did come to accept the
views of European opinion makers,” largely because of the psychological
overhang from “the wounds of racism and fascism.”The problem has been that “postwar Europe
felt a sense of moral illegitimacy,” producing a “new, guilt-based moral
order.”This is the context in which
“the Holocaust has in recent decades been the cornerstone of the European moral
order.”Beyond guilt, however, there is
very little affirmative content: “There is no consensus, not even the beginning
of a consensus, about what European values are… It is a civilization in
decline” that has rejected its “old religion-based cultures” and become
“spiritually tawdry.”Life is marked by
“the shopping mall, the pierced navel, online gambling, a 50 percent divorce
rate, and a high rate of anomie and self-loathing.”

We have
seen, of course, that there is a
consensus among the governing elite, although certainly not in support of
anything that could be described as “European values” as they have been known
in the past.It is worth noting, too,
that the otherwise prevailing cultural relativism isn’t total.Caldwell says Europeans are decidedly not relativistic about
feminism and sexual liberation.“Adapting
to European styles of sexuality and gender relations is the only non-negotiable
demand that Europe makes of its immigrants.”He reports that “public approval of sexual
liberation appears almost compulsory.”

Throughout
the book, Caldwell discusses the pretexts that the governing elite has
put forward in serial fashion to justify the mass immigration.He mentions, too, the measures that have been
taken to suppress criticism and to prevent reversals of the policy.Here are some of the points he mentions:

.Recall that Caldwell believes the Holocaust to have been central to the
guilt and self-doubt that have set the tone in Europe
since World War II.We cannot be
surprised, then, that laws have been passed such as France’s Gayssot Law criminalizing any denial of or
“minimizing the seriousness of” the almost universally accepted account of the
Holocaust.If historical “revisionism”
is allowed, the moral certitude is threatened.

Although
this enforced agreement is of pivotal importance, Caldwell’s treatment of it differs in part from the other
points he mentions in that he agrees with its main point.He joins with those who say there is not “the
slightest scholarly value” in “pretending the Holocaust hadn’t happened.” His criticism of such “hate speech” laws is
not to defend critiques of the Holocaust, but because he believes they can
easily lead to a slippery slope, “an endless criminalization of opinion” on
other matters.

. An idea that has been embraced with ”almost
religious faith” is a “theory of demographic transition.” This seeks to rebut the worry that the
immigrants will become an ever-larger portion of the population because of the
disparity in birth rates between native Europeans and the newcomers.According to this theory, the immigrants’
birth rates can be expected to fall as the Muslims come to enjoy a higher
standard of living.

Caldwell argues that although “sometimes this actually
happens,” it is also true that “sometimes there is no such convergence.”He points out that “Muslim culture is
unusually full of messages laying out the practical advantages of
procreation.”He reminds his readers
that “the late Yassir Arafat… called the wombs of Palestinian women the ‘secret
weapon’ of his cause.”

. Another concept intended to assuage the
public’s concerns is that “there is a diversity of Islams.” This suggests that the cultural challenge is
fragmented.To Caldwell, this view is “perhaps to stave off discussing the
possibility that the various, similar-looking immigrant problems in all Western
European countries might merely be facets of a single larger clash.”

. It may
surprise some that, as in the United States, the argument is made among “intellectuals in every
Western European country” that their respective countries have “always been
‘countries of immigrants.’”Caldwell argues that this is demonstrably false.He observes how thin the evidence for it is
with regard to Sweden, and cites genetic studies that show that the “British ‘stock’ has
changed little.” He says that until
recently there have never been masses of religious and ethnic minorities in Europe.

.Caldwell challenges the “consensus [mentioned earlier] among
political leaders that immigration strengthens the economy unproblematically,
without doing much harm to productivity and without doing any harm to native
wages.”He cites an author who argues
that if 14 million more immigrant workers were admitted, the “natives in rich
countries [would gain] $139 billion.”He
puts this figure into perspective when he compares it with the $40 trillion
dollar gross domestic product of the advanced economies in 2008.The projected gain, Caldwell points out, is miniscule when seen in that context..

.Another argument that resonates with what
Americans hear is that “immigrants do the jobs that no European wants.”Caldwell says that “of course, what is really meant is jobs no
European wants to do at a particular wage.”He observes that the effort to bring in highly skilled immigrants is
inconsistent with this “undesirable jobs” justification.

.An argument that seeks to explain the
immigration by referring to Europe’s colonial past says that “the immigrants are here
because we were there.”Caldwell says this argument could be applied to Pakistanis vis-à-vis
the British, or Surinamese vis-à-vis the Dutch.But he says it is “demonstrably false” as an explanation of why Sudanese
are in Norway or Bosnians in Ireland.

.Double standards are, of course, the stock in
trade of ideological sophistries.Caldwell points to a major one – perhaps, we might think, “the
mother of all” current ethnic double standards in the world today – when he
observes that non-white “ethnic pride” is seen as noble while any concern about
“white identity” is condemned as bigoted.(Again, we see how much elite opinion within Europe
and the United
States
parallel each other.)A second double
standard has to do with how Christianity and Islam are treated: whereas “the
reasonableness of Christianity… continues to be attacked…, no acceptable way
has yet emerged for attacking the reasonableness of Islam in any way at all.”

.Ayn Rand wrote about “moral counterfeiting”
(giving someone more credit than he deserves) and “moral embezzlement” (giving
less credit than deserved).Caldwell doesn’t refer to Rand’s
insights, but he illustrates them well when he tells about how elite opinion in
France put the blame on the native French rather than on the
rioters themselves for the 2005 banlieue-based riots.“Most observers sought an explanation for the
riots that did not involve Islam.”Rather, the premise was “that ethnic violence is always the result of social
unfairness or native racism.” He reports
that “Europeans almost instinctually reach for
depraved-on-accounta-I’m-deprived explanations of terrorism and, for that
matter, any shortcomings in Muslim communities.”

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
addresses the issue of whether European civilization will long continue. It would be hard to imagine an issue of
greater importance.The book deserves
every reader’s serious attention.